Lucky
by Aurontalia
Summary: This is a story about H.G and her feelings for her two best friends, growing up, from an AU universe that  condenses the HP books a bit, add a few things, and not kill off the sexiest character there   I'm talking about you Hedwig    kidding, Sirius!


Synopsis: This is a story about a girl named Lucky... I mean Hermione. Basically, this is a Hermione lamenting how she is Miss Perfect! and is thus excluded from so many normal aspects of life. In my AU version of the fifth year ending Sirius is in the hospital (or somewhere recovering anyway), Ron does not like Hermione That Way, and there may or may not be other fics hinting at a Hermione/Draco or Hermione/Pansy relationship. For now though, angst. And yes, I used "Lucky" by Britney Spears. Bite me, I was about 10 when they started showing that form of brainwashing- er, programming - er, programs on TV, so yeah, semi can't help it. Also, to avoid the whole "Hermione/Pansy" thing that may/may not happen during their sixth year (and I want their seventh to be quite different), I've decided to mess with the time line even more, so that the gang went to the Department of Mysteries before exam week, and the rest of the D.A fought Umbridge/etc. for so long that it disrupted exams for everyone, and so the OWLs are being post-poned, it's basically what, end of June? Early July? Something like that. Also, Ron started dating Lavender brown midway through fifth year, as explained below.

Disclaimer(s); Yes that's right, J. and Britney Spears are the same person, and they -I mean I- write fanfic. Suuuure. Did you also know the Easter Bunny is a Buddhist? No seriously...

(Yeah, obviously I am not Britney Spears, J.K. Rowling, or anyone else who has any form of legal right/etc. to the HP characters or the song "Lucky" and I claim none. I'd say I have rights to the angst, but I'd rather not. I also apologize for using such an old song, and for changing the lyrics slightly.)

Lucky (This is a story about a girl named Hermione)

This is a story about Hermione and her feelings about her two best friends and growing up, from an AU universe that tends to condense the HP books a bit and add a few things, and not kill off the sexiest character there (yes, I'm talking about you Hedwig.)

(kidding, Sirius obviously).

_This is a story about a girl named Hermione_

_Early morning, She wakes up _

Early morning? As if she'd ever gone to sleep last night. Hermione peaked red-rimmed eyes over to the west window, the sun just rising over the horizon, a little peek of shining gold. She always liked mornings in her dorm, with the other girls still asleep, and the dawn pouring over the edge of the world, it was almost as good as being alone and watching the sun rise.

_Knock, knock, knock on the door _

"Hermione!" Ron yelled, bashing his fist against the bell at the bottom of the girls' dorm to make the entire Girl's dorm resonate with a loud clanging. The bell had been set up one night and everyone had said that it was a form of 'evening the field' since the girls could come into the boys dorm's, but the boys couldn't get into the doors (well they could, actually, but Hermione wasn't telling anyone how _that_ spell worked). Everyone had been annoyed for about a week when the boys had snuck down to ring it in the middle of the night and Hermione had almost considered taking it down, but every time she'd thought about it, she'd remembered all the times the girls had called her the 'shy one' (as if answering every question in class was the act of a shy person! Or fighting beside Harry!) the one who 'never did anything' (or lately, never did anyone), and thought it was better to continuously disrupt their sleep than give in. After all, she had a muffling charm. To be fair, she'd set them up in all the girl's dorms, by Summoning Harry's invisibility cloak from his room one night. Cho, the supposed smartest girl in the school (nevermind that Hermione had better marks, Cho was a _Ravenclaw_) hadn't been able to take it down despite her best efforts. No one had asked her. The other girls never thought to ask her for anything.

"I need help with this!" He said, when she'd come down the stairs, her hair a cloud of fuzzy ringlets around her face. _Darling_ Lav Lav would _never_ come down the stairs with her hair _anything_ but perfect, even if they were having end of year exams now. " I just don't get it," he stated, brandishing a crumpled piece of paper at her and leaving the stairwell to throw himself onto a chair.

She went over patiently and took the piece of paper from him. It was the same thing they'd gone over last night, and the last night for two weeks; a basic charm on how to fix squeaking doors. Not a particularly hard charm to learn. It was times like this, when he'd come to her for help with something so simple...

And then they'd study together and she'd explain it, and he'd lean a bit too close for comfort, maybe brush her hair back behind her ears if it trailed on the paper, all things that made her think he liked her. She'd thought when she was 13 or so, in the forest with Harry when she realized that he was not going to kiss her or anything, that maybe she and Ron would be a good couple, that it would work out, Harry with the two best friends all so close. And then Lavender and Ron had started dating halfway through their fifth year. Ron had insisted she be allowed into the D.A after the club had formed. He had insisted that she need not sign the cursed paper, that she was 'one of us,' meaning not just a D.A member, but part of the inner circle that was Harry and Hermione and Ron. He'd put his arm around Lav Lav's waist then, and pulled her close, and for a second. She'd be willing to bet it was Lavender who'd betrayed them; no one had the pustules, and Hermione knew her spellwork.

Harry had not seemed very happy with the idea. But then had caught sight of Cho leaving the room with Marietta, and his face had changed. Hermione had guessed that he'd seen it as Ron's devotion to his girlfriend, at least for now, was above his friends a bit, and that arguing would only cause problems. So he'd acceeded, and Hermione, who was just the one who had arranged everything, had stood there like a lump. Her silence implied compliance, though it did not promise it, and for the next few weeks she'd been as cunning as she could to make sure Lavender looked the fool (though it was not hard, considering that Lavender spent half her time paying attention to her looks not her spellwork), trying to distract Ron.

It hadn't worked.

So she'd given up on the idea that she could be with Ron, and Harry and Ron and her could remain friends forever, like how it had been when they were young.

After she'd finished explain the theory to Ron again, Lavender had come down the stairs to the common room. Her blond hair had swept down her shoulders in perfect waves, glinting in the early morning. Her nails were a perfect sea-shell pink and her smile bright and happy - For Ron that is. She walked across the common Room, sashaying her hips in little dance-like movements, and squealed when Ron hugged her.

Over his shoulder, she'd, well, not quite glared at Hermione, but it was a malice filled look. A sort of triumph and malice mixed together, as if she knew that despite Hermione's great marks and her battle last week against the Death Eaters, _here_ was something Lavender had that she didn't.

They'd gone to breakfast without a backwards glance; Ron had forgotten about her now that he had what he wanted.

_It's time for makeup, Perfect smile _

Hermione looked at the clock on the mantle and went back up the stairs to her room slowly; her morning joy from watching the sunrise gone dissipating like morning mist. She looked over at Parvati half dressed, her sinuous dark hazelnut body posing in front of her full-length mirror and caught sight of herself. Her eyes rimmed red from the sleepless nights (her ears too, from the Pepper-Up potion she'd been drinking, but you couldn't see that), her hair completely frizzy, not a single curl left among them for her to pretend was a single bit of prettiness among the mess. Her skin was pale and almost grey, even in the light. She was certainly nothing worth noticing next to Lavender or Partvati, unless perhaps the person was a doctor, looking for troubled teens.

_It's you they're all waiting for _

She walked down to the Great Hall, books in her arms, ready for the last exam. She liked to pretend when she walked down the halls that she was someone important, someone who everyone would talk about in years to come. She imagined coming back for a ten-year reunion for school, Harry would be quiet but happy, standing off to the side, out of the spotlight he so hated. Ron would be balding, and working class, but mostly happy with his one or two kids, doted upon by their father. Ron would be married to Lavender of course, and Lavender would be rather fat Hermione liked to think, and dissatisfied with how Ron put his kids before his wife.

_Isn't she lovely, This Hogwarts girl _

Hermione of course would be a world famous witch, famed for being clever and beautiful, having been offered Minister of Magic twice by then and refused, as a researcher and as a lawyer she would never compromise her work for the rights of the non-wizard Beings of the wizarding world.

_And they say.. She's so Lucky _

They'd walk down the corridors of the school and point to things they remembered and laugh and cry, and then they'd come across a group of first years, wide eyed at the sight of grown-ups in their school. They wouldn't recognize them at first, but then the stories would come back. The kids would giggle and ask them to relate the times when Fred and George Weasley had escaped the school under the Tyranny of Umbridge, and then come back (while Harry and co. fought the Death Eaters at the Ministry), to lead a full-scale rebellion of the school. How they'd squeal remembering how Hermione had punched Draco Malfoy (the current head of the opposition in her future) in the nose for talking about Hagrid, how Hermione had gotten the best results in her exams of any Hogwarts graduate. How she had run off with the brilliant and gorgeous Sirius Black and adopted two of the abandoned Death Eater's children.

_She's a star, _

But it was just a fantasy inside her own head. If anything they'd remember Lavender. Ron's perfect little girlfriend. Reporters would _certainly_ rather take pictures of Lavender and make her the hero than ugly, Muggle-Born Hermione Granger. Secretly, she'd liked it when Rita Skeeter had trashed her the Prophet - at least the world knew who she was then.

_But she cry cry cries in her lonely heart, Thinking, if there's nothing missing in my life _

But even if her dreams did come true, there'd still be things missing. She had the perfection, or at least as far as you could get at her age and in school; just no one her age noticed. And even if she did become famous as an adult, it would be for something boring, and at the real re-union, she'd be dowdy and old looking from hours in the lab working, while glamorous Lavender would sweep in looking as beautiful as the Muggle movie star and catch everyone's attention. That was her worst nightmare.

_Then why do these tears come at night? _

Down in the Great Hall the noise of her peers jolted her from her thoughts. The roucheous calls of the first years, excited at having their exams over and yet still being at school during the holidays; the older students desperately cramming for their exams. There was one thing she could remember she supposed, thinking back to just two weeks ago.

_Lost in an image, in a dream _

During the battle in the department of Mysteries, Hermione had run through the archway Harry had stopped at, the one full of mist and shadows that whispered things to her that she had pretended not to hear.

But there's no one there to wake her up

Before she'd run through it had whispered to her about how she could just end it, stop it all, how she could stop. How she could rest finally, and be eternally there, watching, but never participating, unchanging.

_And the world is spinning and she keeps on winning _

But she'd run through the archway, and not stopped. She'd come out of the other side dazed, feeling a rush like just after you've thrown up, but before you begin to feel sick again. Then the spell had hit her.

_But tell me, what happens when it stops _

The blast of purple hit her chest, and she felt a great fire through her blood, as though everything sped up and every vein in her body was on fire and moving for a second, then a feeling so cold it just phased straight into pain and she collapsed to the floor.

_Baby _

That was the first word she'd heard when she awoke. To her initial joy, it wasn't her parent's voices, but rather Ron's, low and husky, and for a second she'd felt the old dream, the one built on misread signals and stupidity, had come back for a second.

Then she'd opened her eyes to see Lavender holding Ron's in the bed across from hers. Of course they'd put her bed beside Harry and Ron.

_Isn't she lovely?, __**This**__ Hogwarts girl _

Harry on her other side, sitting on his bed in pijamas had put on his glasses and smiled at her. Smiled at Lavender, and then at Hermione, as if to say 'how perfect it is that we've found her for Ron?'

_And they say.. ,She's so lucky _

Later, when Ron and Harry were discharged, Hermione had lain in her bed feeling ill, drinking six types of potion to stay awake each day and study. The teachers had come to visit her and tell her how clever and brave she was...

And how lucky she had been to survive.

Not the archway, but the spell. No one had noticed the archway. She almost felt like she could descend into hysterical giggles about how they'd missed it. Her biggest blunder... unnoticed.

_She's a star _

They'd praised her on how she'd snuck paper into Snape's pocket as he walked past. How could he be expected to know of the Maurader's secret nicknames? The ones they only really used in public, even if he had been their worst enemy?

_But she cry cry cries in her lonely heart _

Not a single student had come to see her except Harry and Ron. Not little Nigel Argenstein who needed so much help on his Arithmancy homework, not Fred nor George who came to her secretly for help with their experiments, not even Neville who she helped everyday and who'd once asked her to the Yule ball.

_Thinking, if there's nothing missing in my life, Then why do these tears come at night? _

So she'd sat alone in the hospital wing at night, thinking of other girls, at other times who'd had more than she. How Lavendar had snuck in for Ron in the past weeks and Cho for Harry (though she wouldn't admit to it), and even Pansy and Blaise for Draco (who'd been so badly beaten up by a group of ten or so of the D.A he needed the hospital wing. Sometimes Hermione marveled at how such a horrible person could be so talented).

_Isn't she lovely? This Hogwarts girl _

When she'd finally be well, she'd gone down to the Great Hall alone. Her feet made little pad pad noises on the floor, her robes swished, and her breath hitched just before she entered.

_And they say..._

She walked in to a normal breakfast, just like the one today. Students chattering and playing, no one noticed her.

_She's so lucky, She's a star..._

_Afternotes:_

_I am a review whore. And there are more one-shots that relate to this AU. _


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